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THE TRUE BASIS OF 



EDUCATION 



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SCIENCE THE TfiUE BASIS OF EDUCATION, 



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DELITEEED BEFOBE THE 



BOARD OF TRUSTEES 



COLLEGE OF CALIFORNIA., 



4mw.uinnrwwwwi^! 



AT ITS FIRST COMMENCEMENT 



At Oakland, June ^14tli, 1860, 



By CHAS^ AKTHUR ELY. 



'^JITV 



Artis ssepissime ineptus usus est, ne sit rmllvLS.— Bacon' s AntJiiteta, de studiis. 



SAN FRANCISCO: 

TOWNE & BACON, BOOK, CARD AND FANCY JOB PRINTERS 

SOUTH-WEST CORXEK CLAY A:KD SANSOME STREETS 



|>^|^ 1860. 



1 p^-\ 



3^ 






ADDRESS 



Mr. President and Gentlemen: 

There are few occasions that awaken such deep and varied feelings, 
as the first assembhng of those whose interest in the great cause of 
education, — in the right developing of the noble faculties and powers 
implanted in the mind of man — has led them to found an institution 
for the accomplishment of this transcend an tly important end. And 
such an occasion becomes vastly more impressive, when, as now, the 
institution whose energies are just about to be vitalized, is raising its 
untried form, in a State which has itself just sprung into existence ; 
which, without a precedent in the history of nations, has culminated 
in its infancy — has expanded during the few years which most of you 
can overlook, without passing to another decade of your lives — into a 
great and powerful State, equal in wealth and population to some of 
those which bore a part in the founding of our national government — 
whose existence extends back even to that historical period, when time 
throws its misty veil over the record of events, and in the dim past, 
the "distance" and the "middle distance," begin to niingle. It 
would be natural to suppose that thus early in her infancy, her atten- 
tion would be wholly engrossed with her physical wants and necessi- 
ties : but no ; already we see her earnestly directing her thoughts and 
energies to the estabHshment of those sources of literary and scientific 
knowledge, without which no people can hope for permanent prosper- 
ity, or a position of honor and dignity among nations. A people with- 
out them, indeed, is morally and intellectually dead, — however they 
may be galvanized into a temporary convulsive activity ; just as, accord- 



ing to the Roman maxim, " Life itself, without learning, is death," — 
(^Vita sin Uteris mors esf). 

It is truly gratifying, to all who feel any interest in the progress of 
mankind, whether among our own citizens or in the world, to see Cal- 
ifornia at this early period of her existence, withdrawing her increas- 
ing wealth and growing powers, from those attractive fields in which 
they have been invested, and employing them in a liberal spirit, to 
provide for hev first born, the means of scientific instruction and liter- 
ary culture. A State which does this, placing its. institution at the 
same time under the protection of that Divine being who is, at once, 
the source of all our knowledge, and the highest subject for our 
thoughts ; and adopting also the right plan of instruction, need feel no 
fear but that her rising generation — her first crop of mind, shall ripen 
into scholars, philosophers, statesmen, and practical men, with whom 
she will unfold a moral and intellectual vitality, equal to her physical 
power and development ; and will not only rise grandly in the Western 
facade of our national structure, but will exhibit a symmetry and com- 
pleteness, that shall cause her to be admired for the perfection of her 
organism, even among her sister states, who have been successive gen- 
erations at work to establish their powers and bring out their energies. 

The question that presents itself at this time with the greatest force, 
is as to the means to be employed for the attainment of such grand 
results ; and in order to settle this satisfactorily, it is necessary that we 
should determine precisely the end to be accomplished in the education 
proposed to be conferred. 

Institutions of this character are designed, not to give to the minds 
that come within their influence, a particular bent and direction, nor 
to impart to them the special class of knowledge that will be required 
for the profession or occupation that they may choose in life, but to 
exercise all alike, in those mental labors which shall vitalize their ener- 
gies, give an equal relation and conformity of proportion to their facul- 
ties, and uniform direction to. their powers : — storing their minds at 
the same time with those facts which are of universal apphcation in all 
the fields of industry and thought. This course is designed to benefit 
the man of muscle, and all those engaged in the active departments of 
life — facilitating their labors by bringing all the forces of nature to 
their aid ; and equally, the one who sacrifices his muscle to his brain. 



preparing him, by a similar development, to serve those for whose ben- 
efit he lives, and enabling him to take hold of his particular depart- 
ment of duty, with an energy and capacity, that will facilitate his 
course of preparation, and all his subsequent exertions in life ; giving 
a clearness of perception, readiness of expression, aptness of illustra- 
tion, capacity of comprehension, and above all, a fund of knowledge for 
the support and maintenance of all these marshalled forces, which 
could never be attained except by a systematic method of study and 
course of development. 

This brings us to the other main division of our subject — The system 
of instruetion to he pursued. We have found that there are two essen- 
tial objects comprehended in the general aim of education. One, to 
store the mind with facts to enhghten and principles to direct ; the other, 
to develope and utilize the powers and faculties, so as to make this 
knowledge available. 

The first embraces all the intrinsic qualities demanded — the powder 
and shot with which to charge the mental guns of this young battery 
for the moral and intellectual battle of life. 

The last is extrinsic in its office, managing, directing and furnishing 
the fire. 

It may be said that these are of equal importance ; that the powder 
cannot be ignited without the application of fire, any more than fire 
alone could storm a fort without the machinery of war ; and if the 
human mind was a cold, dead thing, like a twenty-four pounder — life- 
less and useless until acted upon by external forces — this would be 
true. But the God-given mind of man is otherwise, — it possesses all 
its perfect arrangement and exquisite finish from the hand of its Crea- 
tor ; and with this, life and soul, which so stimulate it when charged 
with TRUTH, that it requires no external influences, no coals raked out 
from the fires of the past, to make it available ; but when devoted to 
the eternal truths by which it lives and for which it ought to live, it 
glows like the sun itself, with light and heat sufficient to warm the 
hearts, and make the way plain before them, of all who desire to enter 
on these labors. 

Truth, then, is the great central idea — the moving principle of 
science, and devotion to the cause of science is enlistment in the cause 
of truth. It leads us to join in the general inquiry which has rolled 



6 

along with the surge of time, — what is Truth? This question will 
probably not be answered in our day, completely and definitely ; but 
keeping it always before us, we may hope to have our lives made 
bright and clear by its influence, and " the eyes of our understand- 
ings " so enlightened here, that we may not be compelled to grope in 
the very brilliancy of the sea of truth^ if we are permitted to embark 
upon it hereafter. 

By truth, I med^n positive, active truth. The mere fact that the 
thing related is not a falsehood, does not make it an actual, available 
truth. It may be a fact in which the phalanx of gossips are intensely 
interested, that Mrs. A. did not attend Mrs. B's party, or that Mr. 
C. dyes his whiskers ; but these facts are not held among those truths 
that demand a place in our reasons and memories. But many of the 
facts learned by rote in the schools are equally trivial, and so are very 
many of the accomplishments, on which are bestowed a large portion 
of the energies and time allotted for education. By accomplishments 
I do not mean altogether manners and external attainments, which are 
to some extent essential, in order to make real attainments available. 
But mental accomplishments ; things learned as a large portion of the 
extinct languages are, because a person is only considered educated 
who has a classical Gd\ic3ition, and it is not considered elegant or hardly 
admissible to be without it, no matter how complete the education may 
be in all other departments. 

In a highly instructive and suggestive lecture on education, deliv- 
ered in 1855 at the Royal Institution of Great Britain, the speaker 
remarks : "If there wants any further evidence of the rude, unde- 
veloped character of our education, we have it in the fact that the 
comparative worths of different kinds of knowledge have been as yet 
scarcely even discussed — much less, discussed in a scientific way with 
definite results. Not only is it that no standard of relative values has 
yet been agreed upon ; but the existence of such a standard has not 
been conceived in any clear manner. In education then, this is the 
question of questions which it is high time we discussed in some 
methodic way. Before there can be a rational curriculum we must 
settle which things it most concerns us to know ; or to use a word of 
Bacon's, now unfortunately obsolete, we must determine the relative 
value of knowledges. 



" To this end, a measure of value is the first requisite. And happily, 
respecting the true measure of value, as expressed in general terms, 
there can be no dispute. How to live ; that is the essential question 
for us. Not how to live in the mere material sense only, but in the 
widest sense — how to use all our faculties to the greatest advantage of 
ourselves and others — how to live completely ? And this being the 
great thing needful for us to learn, is by consequence, the great thing 
which education has to teach. To prepare us for complete living is 
the function which education has to discharge ; and the only rational 
mode of judging of any educational course is to judge in what degree 
it discharges its function." 

The lecturer then refers to some of the various " knowledges " 
which, possessing inferior worth, are elevated to superior importance, 
and others which although of immense value are in the estabhshed 
process pushed quite out of view ; and then proceeds " to classify in 
the order of their importance the leading kinds of activity which con- 
stitute human life," which we will not consider at large, but briefly as 
follows : 

1st. Defense against outward danger. 

2d. Provision for personal wants. 

3d. For the family. 

4th. For the State. " Those activities which are involved in the 
maintenance of proper social and political relations." 

5th. For Society. " Those miscellaneous activities which make 
up the leisure part of life, devoted to the gratification of the tastes 
and feelings." 

The ideal of education is complete preparation for the right exercise 
of all these several activities, and it would be better, if the whole of 
popular education could be included under one perfect system, com- 
mencing with life and terminating with preparation for its duties ; but 
the nearest we can come to this, is to recommend the early forms, to 
demand others before admitting to the academical course, and then 
while they are here, to instruct them in those studies which, tested by 
the standard of value, are found to possess a relative proportion to the 
limit of time in the college course. 

There is, however, one department of education not introduced in 
this classification, which begins at the beginning and extends to the 



8 

end of all systematized instruction, as well as over all the indirect and 
involuntary instruction, that ought to reach through all the various 
professions and occupations of life. That is, that education of the 
soul which fits it for its immortal Hfe. This being really the end and 
aim of all our life here, is the real object of all education and the ul- 
timate object of all those employments and activities of life for which 
the education we now look to is the immediate preparation ; and it is 
this idea that must give truth and correctness to our forms, and life 
and earnestness to our efforts. 

Now, in determining what are the studies that can be included in 
the range of an academical course, which will fulfill these ends, and 
best prepare every individual whatever is to be his profession or occu- 
pation for " complete living," we must bring them all to the standard of 
their relative adaptation to these several uses, " and their regulative 
influences estimated both as to knowledge and as disciphne." 

The first candidate for our consideration, in the present connection, 
would naturally be the ancient languages. They have always occu- 
pied an important position in educational courses, even contending with 
mathematics for a leading position, as forming the style and strength- 
ening the faculties. Now, although it is undoubtedly true, that " in 
all its effects, learning the meanings of things^ is better than learning 
the meanings of words^^^ and that " the most elegant writers in the 
world studied no language but their own," still, in this age of the 
world, and with the methods of life in vogue among us, the extinct 
languages must occupy a certain position in any general preparation 
for complete living. But what must this position be ? We have a 
theory that we will not present in extenso now, but briefly. That the 
human mind early in life is incapable of any powerful or long con- 
tinued exertion, being soft and plastic, capable of receiving the im- 
pression of any form that may be stamped upon it. Just as the body 
is then undeveloped and unable to exhibit great physical force, but is 
capable of being moulded into any form, that the judgment or caprice 
of those having power over it may dictate ; but as the body passes 
into the period of youth, its physical powers become developed, and 
by means of the pliancy of its muscle, combined with the growth of 
its energies and activities, it is able then to exhibit abilities that it pos- 
sesses ^either before nor after, and also to develop itself by the exer- 



9 

cise of its own forces. And so the mind, at that period, has a force 
and a power that ought to be used for self development, in those ways 
that it is incapable of earlier ; and which, as it settles down into the 
hard, unchangeable forms of life, will leave it with the best shape and 
best style of development for the performance of those life activities, 
whatever they may be — mechanic, farmer, merchant, navigator, archi- 
tect, engineer, manufacturer, miner, artist, clergyman, chemist, law- 
yer, statesman, physician, teacher, common laborer. These all have 
one great end in Hfe, to live well. They take different positions, 
because they think that for the short period of duty here, they have 
their own idiopharmosy, their pecuHar adaptation to some particular 
method of life, in which they shall best fulfill the great end, both as 
affecting themselves, and as regarding the grand mosaic of which they 
form a necessary stone. 

Now the extinct languages possess a value even to all of these 
individuals, in these various positions, provided that they are to be 
advanced so far in the scale of general living, as to think and act for 
all, as well as for themselves ; but languages ought to be stamped 
upon the mind in its pliant state.* They do not require the most 
advanced powers of the mind, though for the purposes they subserve, 
they may. accompany it into a higher state of intellection ; the 
general rule, however, should be that they are implements of use, that 
must be obtained when they are easiest had, and when the more valu- 
able powers and faculties, wanted for the establishment of principles 
and the adaptation of facts to laws and generalizations, will not have 
to be pushed aside and crowded down, while they are worked up into 
a position where, as knowledge is now classified, they will be useful to a 
few in the professions, while by the many they will be forgotten as soon 
as the laurels have been won, and the conventional object of education 



* " There may be cited at the present time thousands of examples in the world, of 
infants of three years of age who profess the knowledge and art of speaking two dis- 
tinct languages, as practiced in all border countries, and the same advantages and results 
are accomplished when families hire a foreign nurse, the infant invariably speaking two 
languages at the same period. A suprising example is on record of the great powers 
of a child only seven years old, who spoke five languages which it acquired in the natu- 
ral way by means of foreign nurses, in consequence of having resided in diflferent 
countries." — D. Jay Browne, Educational Report, 1858, 

2 



10 



accomplished. But as we cannot hope at present to have the -whole 
of education placed upon those principles which its own progress will 
develop, we must, for the present, make the curriculum of an advanced 
course to include those things which have been neglected in the 
natural and proper period, and therefore the languages will find a place, 
but surely they cannot take a leading position ; if they exist only by 
sufferance, they cannot be established as a hving principle, a vital power 
by which and in which the other " knowledges " are to live and have 
their being. 

What then is to occupy this most important position ? Mathematics ? 
This has a higher claim. It comes after the plastic state, after the 
" conceptive faculty.'' It comes after we have gained the " power of 
abstraction," and its higher processes after we have gained the " rea- 
soning faculty ;" so if it also is required for the fulfilment of those 
activities which most subserve '* complete Hving," and is required both 
as knowledge and as discipline, it will present good claim to be re- 
garded at least as candidate for this high position ; let us see. It has 
always been regarded as good discipline in advancing and training the 
faculties, both to develop power and to establish exactness ; but as 
knowledge, it is only a means to an end. To what end ? To all that 
can be called knowledge in the higher sense of truth. And what is 
truth ? If we have followed a right course of reasoning, it is the 
vital principle of those activities that are to constitute the occupations 
of life, and as these all have to do, from first to last, with the materi- 
als that God has placed around, above, beneath and within us, then 
science is that grand truth we seek ; the " tap root " of the tree, the 
corner stone of the edifice, the innate force that is to develop its force, 
the vital power that is to produce the implements of its power, and at 
the same time to call forth the full energies of its highest intellection, 
the completest exercise of its marshalled and disciplined faculties. 

Truth is the essential principle of the mental and moral organizar 
tion and Science is the active energy, the living machinery, of which 
truth is the absolute conception, the Divine idea ; and combined they 
become the Bible of nature, God manifest in his works. And is this 
Bible to be neglected, and infidels allowed to claim the Christian's 
grandest field, and the source from which he is able to derive the com- 
pletest proofs of written revelation ? No ! Truth never contradicts 



11 



itself. When only partly studied, and half seen, it may seem so ; and 
the opposer of truth may point exultingly to the form in the mist, and 
appeal to your own senses for evidence of the ghost's existence, while 
if you have the exact knowledge of the reality, you can in an instant 
clear away the misty veil that thus falsifies reality. 

Absolute ignorance hiding truth is better than the half knowledge 
that changes it to falsehood ; that vague instruction given in some of 
the old institutions as a sort of relaxation and amusement, thrown in 
as it were by accident, and illustrated by a few lectures, in which the 
interest is kept up by experiments which three-fourths of them never 
understand, and regard only as evidence that miracles can be per- 
formed if you know how. Then having yawned through the enter- 
tainment, he returns with his powers restored and his exhausted energies 
collected, to the real labor of digging out Greek roots, and of learning 
the bloody performances of Roman butchers, to prepare them for the 
peaceful occupations of their lives. " As if there were sought in 
knowledge a couch whereupon to rest a searching and restless spirit ; 
or a terrace for a wandering and variable mind to walk up and down 
with a fair prospect ; or a tower of state for a proud mind to raise 
itself upon ; or a fort or commanding ground for strife and contention ; 
or a shop for profit or sale, and not a rich store-house for the glory of 
the Creator, and the rehef of man's estate." * 

The incidental illustrations of science thtt are given to the student 
in the old coaching system are doubtless of some use to him, casting 
a shadow there of which he himself may be unconscious, and if he 
has any mind at all, they leave impressions on it that give force and 
energy to his whole future progress. But if, as we have said, science 
is the visible outline and expression of which truth is the innate thought, 
then ought IT to give character and impress to the system of instruc- 
tion ; to be made the main feature in education to which the other 
studies should be tributary. 

Let us then begin here in this new and vigorous State, where we 
have not to demolish the forms of error and truth, cemented together 
and hardened by time, to erect a temple of knowledge upon a foun- 



* Bacon's Advancement of Learning. 



12 



dation of truth, in which the living, breathing, life-imparting forms of 
science shall fill the places that have been occupied by the sculptured 
relics of the past, and in which shall be taught " those studies which, 
while they give dignity and enjoyment to existence, lead to the most 
useful practical results." The leading minds connected with those 
venerable institutions have their eyes fully opened to the importance 
of a different plan, but they cannot at once destroy the structure and 
change the edifice. Where attempted it has proved vain, so they 
labor on, removing block by block and putting in the fresh forms of 
actual knowledge, while at the same time they gradually turn the 
minds of the people from the old channels in which they have always 
flowed into fresh ones, and to a recognizance of those truths which we 
here can receive and use unmixed with the impurities of prejudice, 
and unchanged by the influences of time. 

The abstract truths of theology and philosophy are those to which, 
in the course of general education, we last arrive by reason of their 
demanding the highest intellection, and natural philosophy is the 
material form, mingled with our material existence, by means of which 
we become able to comprehend those higher and diviner truths, and 
which we must (after we have possessed ourselves of them) carry 
with us in our organized form as long as we continue to comprehend by 
sensation, and establish truth by reasoning. 

Those studies which we propose to regard as tributary, have in all 
the older colleges contended for the supremacy. Now in their subor- 
dinate position, which shall we consider the most useful ? It is not 
claimed for the extinct languages that they record facts in science ; 
for, all that they furnish of these, can be inscribed on the fly-leaf of 
one of our elementary philosophies, while there are thousands of absur- 
dities calculated to mislead the unphilosophized student. Pliny him- 
self says of the Greeks,* " When you enter upon the works, 0, ye 
Gods and Goddesses, how full of emptiness !" But they embody his- 
torical facts. Well, all that is worth knowing of those you obtain also 
firom other sources ; so that all that we actually gain, is the language 
itself, and to quote again the eloquent lecturer referred to above,! 



* Historia Naturalis, Lib. 1, Dedicatio. t Lectures on Education, Royal Institution. 



13 

" the extra knowledge of our own language which is gained by an 
acquaintance with Latin and Greek, may be considered to have a value 
that is quasi-intrinsic " and temporary, while the truths of science are 
of intrinsic and permanent value — " they will bear on human conduct 
ten thousand years hence as they do now. Grant that the taste may 
be greatly improved by reading all the poetry written in extinct lan- 
guages. Accomplishments, the fine arts, belles lettres, and all those 
things which constitute the efflorescence of civilization, should be wholly 
subordinate to that knowledge and discipline on which civilization rests. 
As they occupy the leisure part of life, so should they occupy the 
leisure part of education." 

To us it seems, that for the purpose of outside embellishment, the 
modern languages, which we require for practical purposes, will afford 
it to most, at the same time that they are making use of them for val- 
uable ends ; a sufficient knowledge of the classics, as a key of lan- 
guages, first being added during the plastic period of the mind, and 
then our own grand mother tongue, framed on the Saxon and adorned, 
as it is, with the fruits of classic lore, will, if rightly used, form our 
style, as well, while we are studying the eternal truths of nature, and 
the poetry it opens up to us and throughout the realms of nature and 
her philosophy, as to spend years in the accumulation of words alone. 

Let those then be " elective " studies, and they who say, " let us 
leave entirely these dead and mouldering bodies in their crumbling 
sepulchres," elect such "knowledges " as appear higher in the scale of 
value, while those who choose, for special purposes, can decipher the 
inscriptions on their tombs. 

The Greek is said to be essential to the theological student ; but he 
is the very one that should be most familiar with the truths of nature. 
Therefore so much of the Greek as he does not acquire in the earlier 
years of his general course, should be placed with the Hebrew in the 
later special course, giving all the time and mind possible to those facts 
which constitute the actual, and illustrate revealed truth. 

Let us turn then, for a moment, to mathematics, and examine its 
claim to rank in the service. It is true, we do not find so much of 
poetry in its processes, as in the investigations of Goethe, or in that 
grand epic which Hugh Miller has found " written by the finger of 
God upon the strata of the earth." But it is nevertheless itself the 



14 



master science, that gives inevitable precision to the results of inves- 
tigation in all the " exact sciences." When ununited to those truths 
of which it forms hj right an essential part, it is like the statue of a 
philosopher or statesman, the cold and lifeless marble chiselled into 
forms which tell of genius, energy and power that have lived and 
labored, but which only indicate the splendid faculties and noble powers 
that the outlines stand for. 

" If, however, we estimate the rank of a science by the perfection 
of its methods — the power it confers of pursuing the most lengthened 
and complex processes of reasoning with perfect certainty of the cor- 
rectness of the results, — the remoteness of the conclusions to which it 
has conducted the inquirer into natural laws, — the number and import- 
ance of the truths with 'which it has enriched mankind — or, in short, 
the almost incredible degree in which it has aided and amplified the 
reasoning faculties, — we must accord both to pure and mixed mathe- 
matics, the first place among the various departments of human 
knowledge." * That is, as the basis and framework of science, which 
is itself the foundation of knowledge here, and the stepping-stone to 
the exercise of those higher and perpetually extending and cumula- 
tive powers. 

Now, having looked at the relative station of our aids, let us con- 
sider for a moment the classes that it is desired here to benefit. For- 
merly a "liberal education" was reserved to the " learned profes- 
sions," and " gentlemen of leisure ;" while for the rest of the world 
it was considered sufficient to read and spell, and enough of figures to 
perform the ordinary business of life. But now, that state of things 
is already changed, and every day the index of the popular mind and 
the popular acquirements, is marked higher on the scale. Among 
ourselves we see that they recognize the importance not only of " do- 
ing with the might whatsoever the hand findeth to do," but of "doing 
it with the understanding also." Already the mechanic, with his fac- 
ulties all awakened, desires, whether apprentice, journeyman, or mas- 
ter workman, to know the principle that is at the base of the move- 
ments and combinations that are in his task, and is on the look-out for 



* Enc. Brit. Mathematica. 



15 

any new inventions, or fresh application of former principle, seeing 
that " as in other branches of knowledge so in mechanics, science is 
necessary to the perfecting of art." 

The farmer is no longer the boorish clown, turning over, just as his 
fathers have during uncounted generations, the clods as fertile of 
thought as his own brain, but laboring with mind as well as with hands, 
he developes those facts which are gradually being reduced to system 
by educated men, and the principles for which they stand applied, so 
that every day new knowledge is made available ; and when the agri- 
culturist acquires the knowledge of science, which shall enable him to 
make for himself these applications and generaHzations, he will be com- 
pletely installed in his true position, to which he is now being advanced. 
And even the common laborer has ambition beyond the mere materials 
among which he labors ; he has become conscious of the existence of 
higher faculties, and seeks for knowledge in those realms of science 
through which they lead him. 

We should think him a foolish traveler setting out to cross a wide 
and lonely desert, clothed in robes of silk, and adorned with golden 
ornaments, but unprovided with any of the necessities of existence. 
Yet scarcely more wise are they who start on the journey of hfe, 
clothed in the refinements of ancient literature, and adorned with 
aesthetic culture, but unprovided with the knowledge that pertains to 
life, or the materials of nature on which the operations of hfe are exer- 
cised — and the laws which regulate and govern all their movements, 
and which, as they become of less importance to us personally and 
socially, become more important in our relations to the Divine being ; 
raising us from the first law of nature, through our social and political 
duties, to those regions of pure science, where the soul comes into the 
immediate presence of God, in the manifestations of his power, by the 
laws of terrestrial magnetism. In the views given of his greatness, 
in the fields of astronomy, in the expression of his infinite goodness, as 
made cognizable in the organism of every organized being, and in 
every law of nature that science brings to our view. 

Science is the bone and sinew of the mind, and as the bone and 
sinew of the body — the physical constitution of man, is not developed 
by clothing and external applications, but by nourishment and those 
practical employments of its powers, which, while they possess actual 



16 

use, and are of real benefit to the world around, at the same time, 
tighten the joints, round out the muscles, fill the arteries and veins 
with the glowing element of life, and manifest the climax of sturdy 
force and vigorous power, in a frame that exhibits the perfection of 
symmetry and physical ability. So does it not seem more consistent 
with the best use of the brief time granted us in life, for preparation 
for the eternity before us, and especially for the few years of the bud- 
ding and blossoming time of life that is passed especially here, prepar- 
ing for time and eternity, that this principle should be regarded, and 
the fundamental principle observed in education, should be to nourish 
it with great eternal facts, which are the practical manifestations of 
the wisdom, power and goodness of God, and bring out its innate 
forces, not in gymnastic exercises, but by directing its faculties to the 
analysis, expression and practical application of those elements of 
universal law, prevailing throughout the universe, and extending be- 
yond the limit of human conception ? yet, in the words of one of the 
most gifted of living minds, — " United by the common bond of analy- 
sis, which is daily extending its empire, and will ultimately include 
every object in nature in its formulae."* 

" These formulae, emblematic of Omniscience, condense into a few 
symbols the immutable laws of the universe. This mighty instrument 
of human power itself originates in the primitive constitution of the 
human mind, and rests upon a few fundamental axioms, which have 
eternally existed in Him who implanted them in the breast of man, 
when He created him after His own image." / 

Let our education then be of such a kind as shall enlist aljbm the 
accomplishment of these great objects. Not such as shall drive all 
but the few to seek such rudiments of real knowledge where they best 
can, but shall interest the farmer, mechanic and laborer, so to prepare 
themselves, that at the same moment their hands are occupied in use- 
ful toil, their minds shall be directed to the solving of the great prob- 
lems of existence. When an. education, with real knowledge as its 
basis, is ofiered to the men of practical life, then, and not till then, 
shall we have the grand results of life accomplished. 



* Sommerville. 



17 



No battle was ever fought and won by the generals alone, however 
well they understood the theory of war ; and it is not the great lights 
of science alone, but the army of truth, that is going to drive error 
and ignorance out of the world. Let this institution draw the masses 
within the sphere of its instruction, and then, as its influence gradually 
extends, we shall see the people in all classes and positions looking 
from the material world in which their occupations lie, up to those 
grand truths, upon which all the commonplace and hitherto unnoticed 
facts they meet, depend. Then will they be able, in reading the writ- 
ten revelation, to see not merely the simple truths that are palpable 
there, and adapted to the comprehension of the simplest minds, but 
those higher meanings which cast off their coverings at every step, 
and show still higher ones beyond, exhibiting the infinite character of 
that perfection, which is embodied in recorded truth, as well as in the 
visible universe, and leading us "from Nature up to Nature's God." 



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